Home qualifiers remain unstoppable at BCA Open

Irawaty Wardany

The Jakarta Post

Jakarta /
Fri, June 5, 2015 / 08:17 am

The winning process: Maria Febe Kusumastuti faces Yip Puin Yin of Hong Kong in the second round on Thursday. Maria won 21-17, 21-4 to book her ticket in the quarterfinals of the BCA Indonesia Open badminton championship.(JP/DON) (JP/DON)

The winning process: Maria Febe Kusumastuti faces Yip Puin Yin of Hong Kong in the second round on Thursday. Maria won 21-17, 21-4 to book her ticket in the quarterfinals of the BCA Indonesia Open badminton championship.(JP/DON)

Indonesian qualifiers Anthony Sinisuka Ginting and Jonatan Christie stunned bigger names at the BCA Indonesia Open badminton championship at Istora Senayan indoor stadium on Thursday as they continued their winning run into the quarterfinals.

'I played without burden. I just tried to give my best. In the first game I was quite surprised by his strokes and footing,' Anthony said.

He managed to improve his game later as he restrained from rushing his ball to win the second and third games.

Srikanth praised his opponent, saying he was surprised by his play.

'He's really good. He displayed really good strokes. I'm definitely upset with the loss today, but now that it happened I just want to come back stronger next time,' said the 22-year-old Indian.

Srikanth pulled early to a 7-2 lead, taking advantage of Anthony's late spark into the game. He faced little resistance in closing it to a 21-14 win.

The second game left home spectators in palpable suspense with both players taking the lead alternately. Anthony was first to reach game point only to allow his opponent to catch up before he took the last two points.

The third game continued more intensely as both shuttlers fought it out with their minds in the quarterfinals of the tournament, which offers a total of US$800,000 in cash prizes.

Srikanth took charge initially, before Anthony clawed his way up to surpass his opponent 7-5. The world's third-ranked player battled back to catch up at 10-10, but it was all he could do as Anthony romped to a 21-13 win.

'I don't think it's my day. I made too many mistakes and gave him seven consecutive points in the third game,' Srikanth said.

Tommy Sugiarto's march also came to a brutal end as he failed to capitalize on the winning momentum from his stunning performance over world fourth-ranked Lin Dan the day before.

He won the first game but melted away later as he conceded to 16-21, 22-20, 21-19 to Germany's Marc Zwiebler.

'The first game was already close until I made some mistakes. He should have won in the second game, but I fought back. I tried everything I could and it worked,' said Zwiebler.

Meanwhile, Jorgensen, currently ranked second in the world, pointed to his netting game as the key to his win over Hayom.

'Hayom is a dangerous player with his killer attacking game. That's really his strength and I think this stadium suits him quite well, so I tried to take to the net and put a lot of pressure on him from the front court. That totally failed him,' Jorgensen said.

He said he was keen to take on Jonatan, one of Indonesia's young guns.

'It will be really fun to measure up against a young player and he has done really well. It's good to see a new guy from Indonesia coming up, so I hope he wins,' he said.

They will play against South Korean Ko Sung Hyun/Shin Baek Cheol and Japan's Hiroyuki Endo/Kenichi Hayakawa, respectively.

Indonesia's number one women's doubles specialists Nitya Krishinda Maheswari/ Greysia Polii are the only home representatives after struggling to stop Thailand's Puttita Supajiraku/Sapsiree Tearattanachai 22-20, 21-17. They will next play China's twin pair Luo Ying/Luo Yu.